Comparison of efficacy and safety of aripiprazole and risperidone treating behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia

LUO Ke-yong; LIU Ke-xiang; WANG Rui-chao; FU Hua-bin

doi:10.3760/cma.j.issn.1673-4777.2013.01.017

Abstract：Objective To assess the effect and safety of aripiprazole and risperidone in the treatment of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD).Methods All 68 dementia were randomly divided into aripiprazole group (n =34) and risperidone group (n =34) with a course of 8 weeks.Aripiprazole was administered by patients in aripiprazole group with a starting dose of 2.5 mg/d and less than the maximum dose 15 mg/d,risperidone was administered by patients in risperidone group with a starting dose of 0.5 mg/d and less than the maximum dose 3 mg/d.Two groups were treated for 8 weeks.BEHAVE-AD and treatment emergent symptom scale (TESS) were used to evaluate the efficacy and adverse effect respectively before and at the ends of 8 weeks treatment.The levels of blood glucose,total cholesterol(TC),triglyceride(TG),high density lipoproteincholesterol (HDL-C),low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) and weight were measured at baseline and after 8 weeks.Results After 8 weeks treatment,the scores of BEHAVE-AD in both groups significantly reduced [aripiprazole group:(14.8 ± 4.2),(10.2 ± 3.6),(6.8 ± 2.6) scores vs (16.4 ± 4.6) scores ; risperidone group:(15.2 ±3.9),(11.8 ±3.8),(7.2 ±3.0)scores vs (17.2 ±5.0)scores,P＜0.05 or P＜0.01],but there were no significantly differences between the two groups (P ＞ 0.05) ; there were few side effects in both groups [both 8.8％ (3/34)],but the weight gaining,TC and LDL-C in risperidone group were higher than those before treatment [(71-±6)kg vs (66 ±6)kg,(1.62 ± 0.46) mmol/L vs (0.96 ± 0.29) mmol/L,(3.82±0.86)mmol/L vs (3.08 ± 0.74)mmol/L,all P ＜ 0.05].Conclusion The results suggest that aripiprazole is as effective and safe as risperidone for the treatment of BPSD,but aripiprazole has less effect on blood glucose,lipids and weight than risperidone.